Augment vs Coinbase

A Coinbase pre-IPO perp gives eligible non-U.S. traders leveraged, USDC-settled price exposure to a private company's estimated valuation, long or short, 24/7, with no ownership, voting rights or entitlement to shares. Buying on Augment means an accredited investor acquires the actual security (directly or through an SPV) after issuer approval, and holds it until a sale or a liquidity event. The two are different instruments, open to different people, with different outcomes when the company goes public or is acquired.

What a pre-IPO perpetual future is

Coinbase's help center defines the product this way: "Pre-IPO perpetual futures allow users to trade USDC-settled perpetual futures contracts on private companies ahead of their IPO, referencing the company's total equity valuation rather than an estimated pre-IPO share price." The index level "represents total equity valuation / 1,000,000,000," so a contract on a company Coinbase's index puts at $150 billion trades near 150. 

You do not own shares

"These contracts do not convey any ownership, voting rights, or entitlement to receive or deliver actual shares." The Trading Rules add that the contracts "do not give a Trader any right to acquire, receive, deliver, or convert into shares of the underlying issuer, or any other equity, voting, dividend or shareholder rights."

The price is an index

The index "is the median of (i) the 1h EMA of the Mark Price and (ii) a third-party, publicly observable market price referencing the issuer." If the external input diverges by more than 5%, "the index defaults to EMA." Coinbase's risk section is direct about what that means: the index is "derived from secondary-market pricing and modelled private-company valuations, not a transparent listed share price." Under the Trading Rules, the index "may be based solely on the internal reference price," and Coinbase may change the methodology, suspend the index or halt the market in response to "private fundraising rounds, leaked or partial S-1 amendments, secondary-market disruptions, third-party data-vendor outages, or material public statements by or about the issuer."

Leverage and no fixed expiration date

Pre-IPO perps launched "with up to 5x maximum leverage," run in cross margin, and "do not expire on a fixed date and do not result in physical share delivery." Longs and shorts exchange hourly funding payments based on the gap between the perp price and the index.

Who can trade Coinbase pre-IPO perps

Coinbase pre-IPO perps are not available to U.S. persons. Coinbase's launch post states the contracts "are offered by Coinbase Bermuda Ltd., a Class F entity licensed by the Bermuda Monetary Authority" and are "available to eligible users in supported jurisdictions outside the United States. Not available to US persons." Retail traders in eligible non-U.S. jurisdictions reach them through Coinbase Advanced; Coinbase International Exchange says "US institutions are strictly prohibited from access." There is no accredited-investor test. Eligibility depends on jurisdiction, know-your-customer (KYC) requirements and, in some countries, a suitability questionnaire or wholesale-investor test.

What happens at an IPO or acquisition

Coinbase has already converted a pre-IPO perp into a stock perp. Its help center notes: "On June 12, 2026, the SPCX-PERP contract converted to a standard stock perpetual future and its index has been bridged into direct equity feeds from Pyth."
The mechanism, per Coinbase: when the share count becomes known (typically in an S-1 or S-1/A, or a 424B4), the exchange "rebases the contract from valuation units to a per-share basis." When the stock begins trading, "the per-share pre-IPO perp is bridged into the live equity index and becomes a standard equity perp." Coinbase may instead choose to settle and relist under a new ticker, "on a per-contract basis." If the company is acquired before an IPO, the exchange "will halt trading in the Pre-IPO perp, cancel open orders, and settle open positions at a Final Settlement Price," then delist. In every case, "None of these events results in the delivery of shares of the underlying issuer to any Trader."

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Coinbase's own risk note on the moment of conversion: "A 25%+ move on IPO open is plausible; at 3-5x leverage this can cause large P&L swings and may trigger auto-deleveraging (ADL) events if losses exceed posted margin."
A shareholder goes through the same event differently. The underlying shares may become publicly traded securities, subject to lock-ups, transfer restrictions and the SPV's governing documents. In an acquisition, deal consideration flows to the holder or the SPV, subject to the terms of the vehicle and the issuer.